THE first pupils at Ingleby Barwick’s new free school will have to be educated elsewhere - because it won’t be built in time for them starting.

More than 2,000 local parents have already expressed an interest in sending their children to the new Ingleby Manor School and Sixth Form.

An admissions evening is now planned for next week for what will be the first intake of Year 7 pupils from September 2013.

But as the new school building is not expected to open at the Low Lane site until September 2014 - subject to ministerial approval - the search is on for alternative buildings to house them.

An outline planning application for the new school, a residential development and associated roads and landscaping, is due to be lodged with Stockton Council in the coming weeks.

If approved, the free school would then need final ministerial approval from the Secretary of State before construction could begin.

Frances Lynch, one of the directors of BO2SS (Barwick’s Own Second Secondary School), said it was clear the school would not be built in time for opening in September 2013.

“The Education Funding Agency (EFA) are currently in the process of identifying and negotiating on our behalf for an appropriate temporary site whilst the school is built,” she said.

“We don’t know where it will be until negotiations are complete, but it will be within a certain distance of Ingleby Barwick, we hope walking distance.”

The temporary location will allow children “to be educated in a modern, fit for purpose building” until the new school is complete, say BO2SS.

In advance of a planning application, a screening opinion request for “a residential development of approximately 400 dwellings, and a free school and playing fields” at Low Lane, High Leven, has been submitted to Stockton Council.

The screening opinion is the local planning authority's assessment of whether an Environmental Statement should be submitted with an application.

The admissions evening for the new school will take place on Wednesday, October 10, with two sessions running from 5.30pm and 7.15pm at St Francis of Assisi Parish Church on Barwick Way, Ingleby Barwick.